NETGEAR R7500 Nighthawk X4 AC2350 Router

[TonyH]

R7500 having more powerful cpu, sure it'll provide faster routing. I was running R7000 at 1.4GHz OC'd. In this case the difference was ~15%+ over all. I'd think R7500 will do better than this.
Actually if one does not need all the bells and whistles on a -AC router, Linksys WRT1900AC turns
out to be very reliable/stable as a vanilla flavor router. I am keeping this as a back up to R7500.

 

[mediatrek]

It looks like Belkin's Linksys unit will have it's own 4x4 router soon to go up again the R7500 and Asus's unit. The Linksys E8350 has the same chips as the R7500 (QCA's IPQ8064, QCA9880 and Quantenna's QSR1000 solution). It looks like the E8350 will have 512MB of RAM VS the R7500's 256MB.

 

[thiggins]

It looks like Belkin's Linksys unit will have it's own 4x4 router soon to go up again the R7500 and Asus's unit. The Linksys E8350 has the same chips as the R7500 (QCA's IPQ8064, QCA9880 and Quantenna's QSR1000 solution). It looks like the E8350 will have 512MB of RAM VS the R7500's 256MB.

Somebody at the FCC screwed the pooch on this one. Short term confidentiality request for suppressing the internal and external photos for 180 days is being ignored...
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=2341138

But yeah, its another Quantenna design. QCA's stuff wasn't ready for this round.

 

[TonyH]

It looks like Belkin's Linksys unit will have it's own 4x4 router soon to go up again the R7500 and Asus's unit. The Linksys E8350 has the same chips as the R7500 (QCA's IPQ8064, QCA9880 and Quantenna's QSR1000 solution). It looks like the E8350 will have 512MB of RAM VS the R7500's 256MB.

Hmmm,
Maybe that is why no f/w upgrade is showing up? Maybe Linksys is bypassing WRT1900AC altogether?

 

[RMerlin]

Somebody at the FCC screwed the pooch on this one. Short term confidentiality request for suppressing the internal and external photos for 180 days is being ignored...
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=2341138

But yeah, its another Quantenna design. QCA's stuff wasn't ready for this round.

Is it me, or the cooling solution of this router looks scaringly light? Looking at the internal photos, I see only one very small heatsink.

 

[azazel1024]

Links not working for me right now, but in terms of cooling, most QCA designs I see have little to no cooling for the radios/chips. They seem to run a lot cooler than Broadcom designs.

Maybe the heatsink is only for the Quantenna radio?

 

[RMerlin]

Links not working for me right now, but in terms of cooling, most QCA designs I see have little to no cooling for the radios/chips. They seem to run a lot cooler than Broadcom designs.

Maybe the heatsink is only for the Quantenna radio?

Probably, as the QTN SoC definitely need a heatsink.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[LoneWolf]

I like that Quantenna is getting a lot of wins. We all benefit in the form of broader support that should hopefully lead to even better drivers.

 

[Speedy1205]

The R7500 is a good router and I use it now a while and I`m happy. The Netgear Firmware is supporting all Basic functionality but missing some advanced settings but this is with all the native Firmware I believe. From the Performance I`m impressed as well as my Wireless-N card puts the data to the Router attached USB Disk with at least 12/13 MB/s which is not bad. My previous Asus could not handle this speed with the same disk. Also a very good Feature to use is the Dynamic QoS which works very well on this router and it handles all the traffic to the WAN. For people which are online gaming this is a definitively must have.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Likewise as a new release box R7500 has been very good. Since I plugged it in, updated f/w to latest, been running w/o any problem so far. This router now is little bit slower overall compared to R7000 or WRT1900AC but with improved f/w, it'll run with full capacity I hope.

 

[mediatrek]

I just got the R7500 delivered today and started using it a little. My first takeaway so far is the 5G throughput (both up and down) has been the most inconsistent I have ever experienced in the 5G band. 2.4GHz throughput is consistent, even in my crowded apartment complex environment. I have the 5G radio working in the upper bands and there is only one other 5G device in range that is operating in the lower bands.

 

[HawkFire]

OpenWRT Betafor NetGear R7500 (X4)

In case anyone is interested....here is a link back to myopenrouter

http://www.myopenrouter.com/download/56958/OpenWRT-BETA-for-NETGEAR-R7500/

 

[ChristineBCW]

Tim, thanks for the 9/24 updated review. I appreciate your pragmatic conclusion.

 

[TonyH]

In case anyone is interested....here is a link back to myopenrouter

http://www.myopenrouter.com/download/56958/OpenWRT-BETA-for-NETGEAR-R7500/

Hi,
Unless you're quite sure with this Beta version better not try it. Very tricky reverting back to stock f/w. I also noted it was based on older Kernel version.

 

[Speedy1205]

Beta is working good with Basic settings. Just some major issue which you should know:

USB Disk -> not working just causing mount process to stay at 50 percent of CPU but no mount
Router Boot -> sometimes I need to 3 times turn on the Router to get to my normal settings and be able to work on this
Reset -> Factory reset looks like also having some issues (needed to debrick)
Still not able to install packages.... will be in next release

The good thinks:
- Performance is almost the same like Genie (Stock) or even better... Feel webpages more responsive....
- OpenWrt Gui much faster than Genie
- More settings are still available even when there are still some issues
- SSH access to the router

Revert Back:
- same as always tftp with client IP 192.168.1.2, 255.255.255.0, GW 192.168.1.1 and target Router IP 192.168.1.1
- SFTP client use the latest firmware from Netgaer
- Turn off the router and start it with keeping the Reset Button (hw) till the white light flashes
- Start the tftp transfer and you will be fine

 

[mediatrek]

I had a R8000 as my router (w/ beta FW vV1.0.1.8_1.0.51) and the R7500 (w/ firmware v1.0.0.52) as a 5G bridge hooked up to my laptop's gigabit port. The R7500's Quantenna-based 5G radio was really showing off that it is far from ready for primetime.

5G bridge file transfers across my LAN to and from my ReadyNAS 312 where at best averaging 13 MB/ sec and I would get numerous periods with larger file transfers drops to 0 MB /sec (no traffic) for 25 to 48 seconds with the R7500 5G radio in bridge mode. When using the Qualcomm-Atheros side in the 2.4GHz radio, performance was average to above average for me in 2.4GHz bridge mode.

The only reason for me to keep my R7500 as my primary router now is the Streamboost engine as I have a 20/2 TWC connection. I wish Netgear had waited to have a 100% across the board Qualcomm-Atheros solution in the R7500. From what I have read, MU-MIMO QCA based solutions should be in or announced in Q1 or Q2 of 2015 for actual retail solutions.

 

[trueshot]

coverage vs X6

Does the X6 have better wireless coverage than this device?

 

[HawkFire]

Bricked Big Time

Hi,
Unless you're quite sure with this Beta version better not try it. Very tricky reverting back to stock f/w. I also noted it was based on older Kernel version.

I bricked my r7500 with OpenWRT and it took me 3 days to fix it! The one casualty was the 5 GHZ band is now shot. I can't seem to get it to broadcast even through it is configured to do so. The LED light is not even coming on.

I did two 30/30/30 resets and still no luck. I contacted the Netgear team and they are going to troubleshoot. My question is...is this something that can be related to the firmware or is it possible I fried it when I bricked it. I should also mentioned I reloaded the stock firmware.
Thanks...Paul

 

[TonyH]

HI,
I tried the beta and reverted back to stock f/w. As you noticed you have to power cycle a few times to boot up correctly. One symptom is 5GHz band not coming up with default OpenWRT SSID and password for 5GHz band. Maybe it has something to do with this symptom.

 

[Speedy1205]

HI,
I tried the beta and reverted back to stock f/w. As you noticed you have to power cycle a few times to boot up correctly. One symptom is 5GHz band not coming up with default OpenWRT SSID and password for 5GHz band. Maybe it has something to do with this symptom.

For me is all fine now. When you fillowe the Guide How to Upgrade than its working pretty good. not perfect but good. There is no OPENWRT coming up as it should be some different where the password is Quantenna1 and this is only the 5GHz network.

SSID (Q-stateless) and password (quantenna1) and this works fine. After you flashed OpenWrt make just one 30 sec reset and it works. Stable, not rebooting but USB is not working.....
http://www.myopenrouter.com/article...Stock-Firmware-On-NETGEAR-R7500-Wi-Fi-Router/